Brilliant Club Teaching and Learning Director, Michael Slavinsky, presents how researchers can work in schools.

1. Extending and enriching the classroom
based on university-style learning
Michael Slavinsky
Teaching & Learning Director, The Brilliant Club
@michaelslav
bit.ly/lwaresearchers

2. Who am I?
• Lapsed French teacher.
• Ex-head of MFL at London Academy, 2009 – 2011.
• Teaching & Learning Director at The Brilliant Club
2011 – 2014.
Interested in:
• Teaching subject literacy.
• Conceptual understanding – what makes subjects, subjects?

3. How do The Brilliant Club and Researchers In
Schools work with researchers?
• ITT Route in partnership
with Challenge Partners,
George Abbott SCITT, The
Brilliant Club and Lampton
School.
• Minimum 2 years
• Programme Aims:
– To increase subject expertise
– To promote research
– To champion university access
• September 2014 launch
• Charity
• Individual placements of
about a term each.
• Programme Aims:
– Improve fair access to
university
– Develop knowledge, skills and
ambition for university
progression
• Launched 2011

4. Extending and
enriching the
classroom, based
on university-style
learning

5. Simply put…
…making teaching and learning
better by learning what we can
from working with researchers.

6. Context: exam reform
“We are reforming the content of GCSEs to make them
more challenging so pupils are better prepared for further
academic or vocational study, or for work.”
“We are reforming A and AS levels to make sure they
properly equip students for higher education.”
Policy
Reforming qualifications and the curriculum to better
prepare pupils for life after school

7. ‘University style’
What’s so special about researchers?
What researchers bring…
• Deep and fluent subject
knowledge.
• Pose and answer research
questions.
• Conceptual understanding.
…what challenges students face
• Lack of prior knowledge.
• Lower levels of literacy
within their subject.
• No research experience.

8. Overcoming the challenges to bring university-
style teaching and learning to your classroom.
I will explain what we do to structure university-
style content for pupils for KS3-5.
I will suggest ways that you could embed
elements of this practice within units of work
that you, and your colleagues, design.

9. How do we make complex and
difficult concepts accessible?
The pedagogic stuff
1. Key enquiry question or
core concept
2. Use of glossaries and use
of academic terminology
3. Engaging in research
process
4. Use of journals and
referencing
5. Careful construction of
mark schemes
The cosmetic stuff
1. Marks (1st, 2.1, ... or
Distinction, Merit, …)
2. Course rationales
3. Handbooks
4. VLE

10. Would the stars float in the
bath?
Density, orders of
magnitude, circle geometry
Could you predict an aircraft
failure?
Young’s modulus, Failure
mechanisms
The mysterious case of Jay
Parker
Pulmonary system,
hereditary diseases, genetic
modifications
Can neuroscience help
make Britain smarter?
Nervous system, specialised
cells, memory types
The mathematics of
infectious diseases:
modelling bird flu epidemics
Differentiation, integration,
differential equations
From a lab bench to a
hospital bed: how new
drugs are discovered
Chirality, organic substrates,
protein structures
The physics of mind
reading: illuminating the
brain’s activity
IR spectroscopy, brain
activity
Genetically modifying crops:
an ongoing debate
Genetic modification, cell
biology, ethics
Is personalised medicine
the future to cancer
therapy?
Nano-medicine, cell cycle,
DNA
Key enquiry question or core concept: examples

11. Key enquiry question or core concept: practice!
What was your favourite
topic or module at
university?
If you had to teach an
aspect of it to your
students in a unit of work,
what key enquiry question
would you set?
Pick a KS3/4/5 unit of
work that you will teach
next academic year.
What key enquiry
question addresses the
core concepts at the heart
of this unit of work?

12. Use of glossaries and use of academic
terminology: examples and discussion
Look through the Brilliant Club course
handbooks provided and consider the glossaries
designed by the PhD tutors.
• Why might these be useful?
• How could this be embedded in your units of
work?

13. Why glossaries?
• Don’t dumb down!
• Teach literacy in your subject.
• Use key words for constructing quizzes and
tests.
• Use key words for defining success criteria in
mark schemes.

14. Engaging in the research process: examples

15. Engaging in the research process: how could
you embed this in your schemes of work?
Consider the worksheet. Would this be relevant
or useful for you and your colleagues in
designing a unit of work to include research?

16. Use of journals and academic referencing

17. Use of journals and academic referencing
What can you do embed this in your units of work?
• British Library (only the photocopying will cost you)
• Google Scholar and Google Books
• Sign up to Athens/JSTOR is expensive – can you get a LWA
account?
• Who is doing an PGCE/MA/PhD in your school?
• Researchers In Schools trainees will be associates of KCL and
will have access to online journal articles
How can you teach your students to read journal articles? Here’s one
approach used by Queen Mary University of London with their
undergraduates.

18. How do we make complex and
difficult concepts accessible?
The pedagogic stuff
1. Key enquiry question
2. Engaging in research
process
3. Use of glossaries and use
of academic terminology
4. Use of journals and
referencing
5. Careful construction of
mark schemes
The cosmetic stuff
1. Marks (1st, 2.1, ... or
Distinction, Merit, …)
2. Course rationales
3. Handbooks
4. VLE

19. Our conferences
4th July – University Learning in Schools
PhD researchers + teachers paired together to
design units of work. bit.ly/freecpd
24th July – Inaugural Conference
Bringing together teachers, Widening Participation
professionals and academics to work out what
more can be done to help pupils progress to highly
selective university. bit.ly/BrillWP14

20. Selected References
On deep conceptual understanding:
A schema-theoretic view of basic processes in reading comprehension
Richard C. Anderson and P .David Pearson, 1984
http://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED239236.pdf
Threshold Concepts and Troublesome Knowledge: Linkages to Ways of Thinking and
Practising within the Disciplines Jan Meyer and Ray Land, 2003
http://www.colorado.edu/ftep/documents/ETLreport4-1.pdf
Thinking Writing project at QMUL
http://www.thinkingwriting.qmul.ac.uk/
Policy context:
https://www.gov.uk/government/policies/reforming-qualifications-and-the-
curriculum-to-better-prepare-pupils-for-life-after-school
www.thebrilliantclub.org
www.researchersinschools.org
All these resources can be found at: http://bit.ly/lwaresearchers